The Master File
by lucy2point0
Summary: Sydney. Vaughn. His Aunt Trish. A red silk handkerchief. An homage to Run Lola Run. Bad-ass Sark. And a standup joke or two...Chapters 11 to 13 UPLOADED & Complete
1. The setup

The Master File  
  
By: lucy2point0, email: wendy@devil.com  
  
Rating: G to PG-13 for all chapters  
  
Spoilers: Anything in Season 1 is fair game. Slightly AU here… let's just assume Vaughn makes it out alive from taking the big drink, Will manages to get his editor to not publish the story, Dixon never followed Sydney and the Alliance/SD-6 are still blissfully unaware of Sydney & Jack's adventures in Taipei.  
  
Disclaimer: This fantastic Alias world is SO not mine, but it does belong to JJ Abrams, ABC and everyone else who is involved with the show.  
  
Feedback: Sure...  
  
Archive: Sure, drop me an e-mail and let me know so I can visit.  
  
Notes: The movie Run Lola Run is one of my favorite foreign films and I know the show is very much influenced by the movie. This story, as you'll see in a few chapters, uses some of those plot devices as the movie, just so you know! And even if you've never seen the movie, hopefully…the chapters will be straightforward enough for you to follow. :D The point of view's Sydney's for the first few chapters, but will eventually shift towards Vaughn's.  
  
And last, but not least, a big fat thank you to Mai and Karen W. for beta-ing this beast of a story. 2+ months in the making, but it's done at last! :D  
  
Chapter 1 - The setup  
  
[MOSCOW – early evening]  
  
In a bare room in an abandoned building, 3 people sit at a table. One of them lights up a cigar, briefly illuminating his weathered and wrinkled face. He takes several puffs before he speaks. "Will this…work?" The voice is heavily sibilant, laden down with a Russian accent. His question is aimed at the woman seated across from him.  
  
"Of course. Poole verified the existence of the file, though he claims he only learned of it by accident. What better way to bring down the destruction of the Alliance than to start it from the inside? With a little nudge from us, of course." Her voice is smoky and exotic. "And even if the operation does not go as planned, it will, at the very least, create more dissent amongst the leaders of the Alliance. But, ultimately, we need the Alliance and all their SD cells compromised and destroyed as well as their Rambaldi artifacts recovered before we can continue with our work.   
  
"If the CIA can help us in any respect, all the better. They have the manpower to take all of the Alliance down for us. But we have the speed to get in and get all Rambaldi artifacts out before they do."  
  
She laughs. "There are times when sharing intel with our adversaries can be used to one's advantage." She turns to face the young man seated next to her. "What is the status of the operation?"  
  
The young man clears his throat. "Phase One is complete. The intel regarding the existence of an Alliance Master File was leaked through our usual channels about 4 hours ago to SD-6 and 6 hours ago to CIA mail servers as an anonymous email transmission. They are likely analyzing the intel even as we speak to ensure its veracity." His soft voice, with that characteristic Irish lilt, imbues his words with a musical rhythm that is unnerving and at complete odds with his cold, ruthless demeanor.  
  
She speaks again. "Excellent. As soon as we know that SD-6 and the CIA are on their way, Phase Two will commence. You'll be leaving for London in 4 hours. Your instructions are to ensure that the SD-6 agent is able to escape Alliance headquarters with the Master File, and then to recover the file. From either the SD-6 agent, or the CIA agent, at any cost."  
  
"At any cost?" It doesn't take a rocket scientist for the young man to guess who will be sent to retrieve the file.  
  
The woman hesitates, and then clarifies her position. "If you are left with no other alternatives, recover the file at *any* cost." 


	2. The Mission Briefing

Chapter 2 - The Mission Briefing  
  
Notes: See Chapter 1.  
  
[LOS ANGELES – Early morning – SD-6 mission briefing room]  
  
She makes it to the mission briefing room with a minute to spare and immediately takes her seat. She scans the room and sees only Sloane and Marshall. As soon as she sits down, Sloane begins the briefing.  
  
"This mission is a simple one really, which is why you're going in alone." He walks around the table and slides a black folder towards her.   
  
He picks up a remote and turns the briefing screen on. An email transmission appears on the screen.  
  
"As you may well know, we have recently shifted our focus away from finding Khasinau, The Man, to discovering the entire reach and extent of his organization in the hopes that we can infiltrate it and recover additional Rambaldi technology. We are already at a disadvantage as it is; we still cannot find the right solution to expose the blank page that you recovered from Khasinau's vault in Paris 3 weeks ago."  
  
She tears her eyes away from the contents of her folder to look up at Sloane. He is clearly not pleased to disclose the fact that despite the success of her mission in Paris, it has still not yielded the results he had been expecting. She remembers the conversation she had with her father when they discussed how she would break into the lab in Santa Barbara to get the page and make a switch.  
  
[A few weeks earlier—Sydney and Jack in a van discussing how to get into the Santa Barbara lab]  
  
"Dad, where are we going to get a counterfeit page on such short notice?"   
  
He produces a blank page from his coat.  
  
"A backup contingency, in case you couldn't do the page switch at Sloane's residence a few months ago. I was given a duplicate counterfeit page by Kretchmer. My orders were to attempt to do a switch if you couldn't. I…wasn't allowed to disclose my mission to you so you couldn't have known of this page's existence." A pause. "I wasn't asked for the page back after you completed the switch, so I…kept my copy."  
  
In her initial haste and panic to get the original page she had forgotten to leave the counterfeit in its place and almost left the password-secured area before remembering to return and complete the switch.   
  
She comes back to attention as she sees Sloane cross her line of sight as he paces in front of her and begins to talk again.  
  
"A few hours ago we received some intel from a reliable source claiming that there exists something called the Master File."   
  
"What is the Master File?"  
  
"This file supposedly contains Khasinau's entire organizational network of contacts, shell companies, bank accounts, cells, agents and suppliers. We believe that the file is housed in the sub-basement of this building…"  
  
The briefing screen changes, now showing an old, stately building with tall stone columns resembling a courthouse.  
  
"Hartley House, located in London. We have reason to believe that this building houses a server farm in the sub-basement and that the Master File is in one of those servers. If we can get this Master File and determine the extent to which his organization works, we may be able to recover some of the Rambaldi technology that he has, and when we are done, render him and his organization…useless.  
  
"In 36 hours there will be some routine data backups performed on those servers. Your mission is to get a copy of the Master File with the help of a data extraction device and get out of there without raising any alarms. Since we don't know in which order or how many of the servers are taken offline at a time, you could be out of there in as little as 5 minutes or as long as an hour. Marshall?"  
  
Marshall shoots straight up from his seat.  
  
"H-hey…" he bobs his head at Sloane, and then at Sydney. "How's everyone this morning?" She smiles at him, which makes him fidget a little more as he fishes a device from his pants pocket. He places the device on the table next to his apple fritter (ever present at morning mission briefings). It's a PDA, a Handspring Visor model by the looks of it. He picks it up.  
  
"This is your standard Handspring model, or so it seems. But really, this is my latest improvement on your average run-of-the-mill data-extracting device I've got. This baby can receive 50 Gigabytes of data up to 30 feet away from any single computer hard drive or tape drive in under a minute. Now you don't have to put the device right on the hard drive to extract it."  
  
She takes the device and is surprised to find it light in weight.  
  
"That's quite the data-extractor," she says, impressed. Marshall is equally pleased and flustered to hear her praise his work.   
  
"And the best part is that with the range if you can find a nice spot to camp, you can probably extract data off of maybe 6 to 8 servers by aiming the device at one, then picking the data off the server next to it, then the one next to that…like boom, boom, head shot, double kill… just like playing that UnrealTournament game heh…ah…and…it works just like a regular PDA. Why, you can download all kinds of PDA stuff off the net, like that Star Trek tricorder program…you can use your stylus and click on this Star Trek looking console and have it beep and blip like the tricorders on the Star Trek shows…so cool…heh… Engage!" he says, in a pale Gallic imitation of Captain Picard.  
  
Sloane's not-so-polite cough brings him back down to reality.  
  
"Ahem…yes, well it is quite the data-extractor. Just a few things to remember when using the device. Place it face side up, and make sure you are in a direct line of sight with the hard drive, the closer the better, and make sure to press the up button to set it in receive data mode. And of course, press the down button to set it in transmit data mode." Sloane nods at him.  
  
"That will be all. Thank you Marshall."   
  
And with that Marshall leaves the room, apple fritter in tow.  
  
She looks at Sloane expectantly. Sloane sits down on the edge of the table, looking at her, smiling down at her with his dark serpentine eyes.  
  
"I don't need to tell you how dangerous, and important this mission is to the organization…and to you personally…" (he has no clue that she has already met her mother at last in Taipei…with disastrous results) "but I want you to know, that if you complete this mission successfully, you will be offered a promotion for the 7 years of exemplary service you've done here at SD-6. Agent Ryerson is due to retire next month from SD-6 as an assistant director of Operations. And I can think of no better person to take his place than you.   
  
"You will probably spend less time in the field, but you will likely be co-ordinating and strategizing missions with your father…and myself."  
  
Grinning now, eyes crinkled, he looks expectantly at her, thinking she will leap at the opportunity.  
  
She is stunned. Sloane stands up and leans over to pat her on the shoulder, almost patronizingly.  
  
"I know I told Jack a few days ago I was merely considering you as a potential candidate, but I wanted you to know, from me, that the work you do day in and day out makes a difference here. And that this promotion is the organization's way, and my way of letting you know how much it is appreciated. So let's just keep this a secret between you and me, all right?"  
  
She shoots him a brief, shaky smile, and nods…  
  
"We'll talk more when you get back. You'll be leaving tonight." And with that he steps out of the briefing room.  
  
She gets up then, and leaves the mission briefing room. She makes her way into the open area of the office, looking for Jack.  
  
Their eyes meet and he nods, and he then glances at the meeting room across the office.  
  
[SD-6 meeting room]  
  
As soon as they are both in the meeting room with the doors closed, he pulls out his pen and twists the cap to jam all nearby radio frequencies.  
  
When the pen stops beeping, after 3 seconds, he speaks again. "You've got 2 minutes."  
  
"Sloane's sending me to London tonight to get a copy of something called the Master File. He believes an email transmission sent by an anonymous source and received by SD-6 mail servers a few hours ago is proof that this file exists."  
  
The look on Jack's face tells her that he still has not completely regained Sloane's trust. He is surprised he was not briefed on her mission.  
  
"Tell me more about this Master File."  
  
"He claims it contains Khasinau's entire organizational network as well as details about all the Rambaldi artifacts collected so far. The file is located in a building called Hartley House and in less than 36 hours servers in the sub-basement will be taken offline, several at a time, for data backup. One of them contains the Master File. I'm supposed to get in there and get the data."  
  
Now Jack is clearly alarmed.   
  
"Sydney, there are about 25 people including myself who know about the significance of Hartley House. Hartley House is where the leaders of the Alliance meet to discuss and vote on issues. Only half of those people have the clearance to know about the server farm in the sub-basement.  
  
"Sloane isn't sending you to retrieve organizational information on Khasinau, he's trying to get you to break into the Alliance's own server farm. He must have had the email transmission doctored to make it look like it referred to the existence of a Master File of Khasinau's organization, not the Alliance's."  
  
"But why?"  
  
"So that nobody would think anything of the mission other than what it is; data extraction." He pauses, thinking quickly. "There has to be something on one of those servers that Sloane wants badly enough that he would mislead you and violate the Alliance's rules of conduct. And the only possibility I can think of is that there exists a Master File containing the Alliance's entire organizational work, including SD-6's and he wants it because he can use it for leverage to further promote his standing and SD-6's within the Alliance. And possibly as payback for Emily's death. "  
  
"Does such a file really exist?"   
  
"I don't know. But if it does…" Their eyes meet.  
  
"…the CIA could use it to take down the Alliance, and SD-6."  
  
"Yes."   
  
Despite herself, she feels the faintest stirrings of hope bloom inside her. She sits straighter in her seat now, determined.  
  
"Then let's hope the file exists and I don't leave there empty handed."   
  
He nods curtly. "I know I don't need to tell you to be careful on your missions…but for this one...with the stakes so high, and the margin for error so small…I…would want to get backup."   
  
She knows what he is suggesting, and she bobs her head in acknowledgement.   
  
But before she passes him to exit the meeting room he clears his throat, causing her to stop in her tracks.  
  
"I…also heard from Sloane that he is considering you to be the next assistant director of Operations."  
  
She clasps her hands behind her and turns to look at him. "Yes. He told me in the briefing room. I'm a little surprised. I never would have thought I'd be doing anything else other than field work at SD-6."   
  
"The best candidates for a position like that *should* have prior field training so they know the kind of missions they'll be sending agents out on," he begins matter-of-factly, but stops. Given what they really know about SD-6, it would probably not be the ideal way for her to be getting ahead. Knowing that, he permits himself a small smile. "Though I'm sure you'd do an excellent job, under the circumstances."  
  
"Thanks," she says, catching his meaning, "but let's hope I don't have to make the decision to accept or not."  
  
Jack's pen beeps again and quickly he shifts gears. He clears his throat. "—and if you can get that report to me by the end of the day I'd appreciate that," he says.  
  
"I will. Thanks."  
  
She leaves the meeting room and makes a beeline for her desk, checking her watch.  
  
Time to go for a quick run for coffee at Starbucks, and to do a drop. 


	3. Interlude Sydney

Chapter 3 – Interlude  
  
Notes: See Chapter 1.  
  
[LOS ANGELES – hours later, mid-afternoon – somewhere on a freeway]  
  
She sips the last of her iced coffee idly, looks at her watch and wonders when the traffic jam will let up. She watches an irate man in a business suit exchanging words and shaking fists at another man the next lane over about 2 cars ahead of her.  
  
She laughs out loud, unexpectedly, as the man in the suit offers an anatomically impossible suggestion for the other man to try. But the moment of humor is brief, and she checks her watch again. She's due for a meeting with Vaughn in 20 minutes and she doesn't want to be late.  
  
Her cell phone rings. She picks it up and reflexively checks the call display. It's Will, calling from work.  
  
"Hey."  
  
"Hey, Syd."  
  
"I can't believe you're actually at work at this time of day. Because you're usually over at the house parked on the couch. Cleaning out the fridge, eating both Francie and me out of house and home and then having the audacity to ask her for the umpteenth time who is sleeping with whom on her favorite soap operas. You know, on General Days of My Children."  
  
He snorts. "It's All My Children, I'll have you know. Sometimes you really crack me up. Really, Syd, you do," he says, deadpan, then laughing.   
  
Her heart lifts slightly, and for a moment it feels like things are almost as they were a few weeks ago, before everything changed.  
  
"So, ah, listen, I was wondering if you and Francie want to go out tonight and catch that film noir movie festival. Starts at 7, plenty of time for you to come home, get ready, and take in some Bogie and Bacall..."  
  
She starts her car up now; traffic is starting to move. She balances the phone between her jaw and shoulder as she begins to drive.  
  
She sighs. "I'm not sure if I can. I have a meeting…to go to in 20 minutes. And I…may have more meetings in the next few days or so."  
  
She hears him emit an equally long sigh.  
  
"Okay," he says.   
  
By now he understands implicitly what she means when she says she has a meeting to go to. Or when she says has a trip to take somewhere, halfway across the country. Or when she says she's been a klutz and banged her arm on a door…again.  
  
He understands the jargon now, but he is still by no means comfortable with it, with what she does. But he tries, for both their sakes, to pretend everything is like what it was before and for that she is grateful.  
  
He coughs to break the awkward moment. "Okay, well, I'll talk to you when you get back then."  
  
"I'll call you when I get out," she says softly. "Bye."   
  
She hangs up and looks at her phone for a second and focuses on the road again, wondering if the traffic will ever clear up to let her get to the warehouse on time. 


	4. The Countermission

Chapter 4 – The Countermission  
  
Notes: See Chapter 1.   
  
[LOS ANGELES – The Warehouse]  
  
She strides quickly through the maze of crates and containers to the area where Vaughn is waiting for her.  
  
She turns the corner and sees him sitting in a foldable chair, reading the contents of a file folder. Hearing her approach, he looks up and puts the folder on a nearby table and gets up to slide the chain link fence to the side to let her in.  
  
"Sorry I'm late, traffic was murder," she says.  
  
"Yeah, I just got here a few minutes ago myself." He looks as tired and rumpled as she feels, and he runs his hand through his hair in a gesture that signals to her that he's agitated about something.  
  
"What's going on?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"You're doing your running-the-hand-through-the-hair-gesture. You do that when you're nervous about something."  
  
He smiles, lifting the corners of his mouth slightly.  
  
"I am a spy, you know. I'm trained to notice things," she offers, deadpan with an arched eyebrow.  
  
He lets out a half-snort. "You're in a mood today."  
  
"Wouldn't you be if in less than 24 hours everything that you've been working towards was going to be within your grasp?"   
  
"Well, that's why I'm nervous. The CIA received a similarly worded email about the existence of the Alliance Master File hours before SD-6 got theirs. But from a different source. Here."   
  
He passes the file folder to her and she quickly scans the contents of the email.  
  
"So the source you guys use is completely different from SD-6's…so what? Shouldn't the fact that two different, reliable, and independent sources are saying that this file exists be enough proof to go after it?"  
  
He gives her a look that makes her remember the rash declaration she had made to him in the bloodmobile almost a year ago, about shutting down SD-6 in mere months - just before he showed her the SD-6 organizational map.   
  
"Remember Algiers and Denpasar? How we set up the story that there was a second ampule to draw out Khasinau? This is what it reminds me of. Somebody is trying to stir up some trouble by dangling this file in front of SD-6's and CIA's and God knows how many other intelligence agencies' noses. But it's too good of an opportunity to pass up."  
  
"Then what's my countermission going to be?"  
  
"You'll go to Hartley House and perform your mission for SD-6. Get a copy of the Master File and get out. Because of the risk of the operation, and the nature of the data you're being sent in to get, Weiss and I are going to be your backup in London, on Devlin's orders and at your request.  
  
"We'll be keeping a low profile. We'll be in a van near the area to make sure you don't have any run-ins with anyone else who might know about the file, but unless you are in extreme danger we can't break our cover and help you. And if we were to help, your cover *would* likely get blown in the process."  
  
"How are you going to get the file from me if I can't give it to you? Are you going to be giving me a device to upload the file to? Or arrange for a brush pass at the airport?"  
  
"No on either count. Because chances are, you're probably going to be running like hell from Hartley House. Instead you'll transmit the data to a CIA-issue wireless data-storage device that can receive data transmissions from 50 feet away, located in the CIA van. We'll park a few blocks away…when you get within range of the van transmit the data and keep running right by. Nobody will know that any data got sent or know that we were there to receive it. And…if you were to be caught by Alliance Security Section and we couldn't extract you, we wouldn't want anything linking you to the CIA."  
  
She stills, blinks, and sobers at that realization.  
  
"Syd, what's wrong?"  
  
She looks at him and shakes her head.  
  
"Vaughn, if I get caught, Sloane's going to make sure I never get interrogated by Security Section," she says quietly. "He's going to have gunmen ready to take me out and write me off as an agent gone rogue for revenge for Danny or something."  
  
He shakes his head vigorously.  
  
"Sydney, that's just a worst-case scenario, but it's not going to happen, all right? You've got me and Weiss for backup plus the London field office to tip us off to anything unusual between now and when we arrive. Everything will be fine."   
  
The look on her face and the lack of eye contact tells him he hasn't quite convinced her. He sighs.  
  
"Sydney, we both made it out of Taipei by the skin of our teeth…this mission is going to be a cakewalk in comparison." He looks at her until she meets his gaze. "I promise." She gives him a brief smile. "We'll contact you when you check into your hotel in London and let you know where we will be and how we will communicate with you during your mission."  
  
"All right." She watches him walk past her to the chain link fence and as he does she glimpses a flash of red from the inside of his suit. "What's that you've got in your jacket?"   
  
He stops, turns and looks at her. "What?" He lifts a flap of his suit jacket and she sees a red cloth tucked in the inside pocket. "Oh, uh, this." He pulls it out and it is a red silk hanky, hand-stitched and embroidered. "Remember my Aunt Trish?"  
  
"Crop circles Aunt Trish?" she offers, trying not to stare and smile at how pink his ears are getting.  
  
"Uh yes, the one and the same," he says, a bit self-consciously. "Well, she just sent it to me at work and it arrived today, out of the blue for no reason. She called me and said I would need a good luck charm in the near future. And it would jazz up my wardrobe with a splash of color, as she put it."  
  
"Well, maybe she knows something about this mission that we don't. Take the hanky with you then. It might prove to be good luck."  
  
He rolls his eyes and she smiles at him.  
  
"You know, at this point I'd say good luck to you on your mission but maybe instead I'll just wave this hanky at you and you will be blessed by the good luck fairy goddess, or something," he says dryly, eliciting a laugh from both of them.   
  
She reaches out and quickly squeezes his hand holding the hanky.   
  
"See you in London in about 15 hours."   
  
He nods and watches her disappear down the corridor. He looks down at his hand and is amazed and unsettled that it is still warm and tingly from her touch.  
  
"Yeah," he says softly, to himself. "See you in London." 


	5. Interlude Vaughn

Chapter 5 – Interlude – Vaughn  
  
Notes: See Chapter 1.  
  
[LONDON – early evening, blocks away from Hartley House]  
  
She walks by a trendy boutique and stops to check her makeup in the reflection of the window. She glances casually around to see if anyone has been following her. So far, nothing suspicious has appeared on her visual radar. Adjusting her backpack slightly, she checks her watch. She has 40 minutes to get inside the server farm before data backup begins.  
  
Further down the block she spots the license plate tags of the CIA van. She reflexively touches the clip-on diamond stud earrings she is wearing, delivered to her hotel room hours before with a note from Vaughn:  
  
"These diamond earrings will act as your comm link. Press the studs lightly once to turn them on. When we need to talk to you we'll send you an encrypted audio transmission through the earrings. The surface of the earrings will pick up what you say, encrypt it and transmit it back to the van.  
  
It's a remote possibility, but we don't want the link to be picked up so press the studs again to turn them off before going into the building. If you get in a tight spot, take them off and rub them together in your hand. It should set off a small exothermic heat reaction to fool any infrared sensors into thinking the earrings are the heat signature of an actual person.  
  
Who says diamonds aren't a girl's best friend?  
  
V."  
  
She smiles a little, remembering the little smiley face he put next to his initial on the note, and then reaches up to press the earrings once to turn them on. She hears a light clicking noise and knows she's ready to communicate with the CIA van.  
  
[CIA van, same block]  
  
"I have her on visual and she's live." Weiss turns the night-vision monitor towards Vaughn.  
  
Through the green monochromatic screen, he sees her walking briskly about 5 car lengths away. Weiss puts on his headset.  
  
Vaughn does likewise and speaks into his headset. "Guimauve*, do you read me? We have you on visual."  
  
She flashes a quick smile straight ahead, not aimed at anyone in particular as she closes to within 2 car lengths of the van. "I copy, though I do have major reservations about the person that comes up with these hokey codenames," she says dryly through their headsets. "Everything going as scheduled?"  
  
Vaughn looks as Weiss, who nods. "Yes."  
  
She passes the van. "Any unusual activity around the building or area?"  
  
"Negative on that, it's been quiet all evening," Weiss answers.  
  
"Sounds good. Thanks guys. I'll contact you again when I'm a block from the building."   
  
"Copy that," Vaughn replies. They watch her get to the end of the block and take a left turn around the corner. Weiss watches Vaughn take off his headset. Things are silent in the van for a few moments before Weiss speaks again.  
  
"She doesn't know that you and I—" Weiss begins.  
  
"—have had a falling out? No. If she did know, she probably wouldn't have requested the both of us." Vaughn lets out a long sigh and then a half-laugh. "You know what? Knowing her, if she did know, she probably would have still requested the both of us just so we could patch things up."  
  
"Mike—"  
  
Vaughn almost spits out each word. "This wasn't my idea. This was her idea, and the perfect reason for Devlin to approve it. So you can keep tabs on me and report back to him."   
  
Weiss's silence is all the answer Vaughn needs to confirm his suspicions.   
  
But before he can say anything more Weiss speaks up again. "Mike, I know we've argued about protocol time and time again. You know where I stand on this. If you're not able to keep yourself in check, the responsibility of the Agency is to make sure you are kept in check so you can do your job the way it should be done." He pauses. "And the Agency isn't placed in any more risk than it needs to be."  
  
Vaughn is shaking his head in disbelief. "I can't believe you are saying all of this."  
  
"Mike, I'm doing this for your own good. You got promoted to a position where any officer with your speciality would have worked 8 to 10 years to get--just because a double agent demanded that you get promoted. You've gotten away with stuff that nobody else could, because you're Sydney Bristow's handler and Sydney Bristow also happens to be the daughter of the legendary Jack Bristow.  
  
"You've told me you've made the decisions that you have because you feel responsible for her safety, because you feel that her life is in your hands every time she does a countermission for the CIA. Have you ever considered that your life is in her hands every time too? That if something goes wrong for her, your existence could be in as much danger as hers? That's why the protocol is there, so you don't ever get to that point. Only, *you're* way past that point now," Weiss sighs resignedly. "You'd better hope she values your hide as much as you do hers or else—"  
  
"She got me out of Taipei," Vaughn says quietly, effectively cutting Weiss off. "She could have left me behind with her mother. I would have likely been beaten and tortured to death by now if she hadn't come to free me. She went against Jack's advice and she came back to the lab. We barely made it out in one piece…" (he still has the faint yellowish bruises from the kidney punches that Sark gave him in the brawl that ensued during the escape) "…but at no time did she ever second-guess herself or express regret in making her choice. She took a huge…leap…for me. She said she had done it for me because I had done it for her so many times."  
  
Weiss looks at Vaughn for a moment, and then averts his gaze, looking equal parts chastened and embarrassed. "I…didn't know about the last part. Why she got you out."  
  
"Do you understand where I'm coming from now, Eric?"  
  
Weiss nods. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. Only it's going to make me keeping tabs on you tougher now. It's not going to be easy---"  
  
A corner of Vaughn's mouth quirks up. "Then find a way."   
  
Despite the fact that he just had his own words thrown back at him weeks before, Weiss starts to laugh. And it's not long before Vaughn joins in as well.   
  
"I'm still gonna be a hardass, just so you know," Weiss says, after he's managed to stop laughing.  
  
Vaughn leans back in his chair and stretches his arms out, and then puts his hands back in his jacket pockets. He fingers Aunt Trish's red hanky in his right jacket pocket and shoots Weiss a look.   
  
"I know. But if this mission goes off without a hitch, you may not have to be for much longer."  
  
They spend the next few minutes surveilling the area and still can't find any clues of suspicious activity.   
  
Sydney's comm link suddenly comes on again. "Guimauve to base, do you copy?"  
  
Weiss & Vaughn put on their headsets.  
  
Vaughn speaks. "We copy Guimauve. What's your status?"  
  
"I'm a block away from the building. I'm going to go quiet in about 30 seconds. Any updates?"  
  
"Negative. You're clear."  
  
"Good."  
  
"Guimauve…good luck." Vaughn visualizes her smiling at how ridiculous he probably just sounded.  
  
She gives out a small laugh. "Thanks. Guimauve out."   
  
And with that they hear the comm link go dead again.  
  
  
Note: *guimauve is French for marshmallow. Cheesy, but what the hey… :D 


	6. Extraction

Chapter 6 – Extraction   
  
Notes: See Chapter 1.  
  
[LONDON – 45 minutes later, inside Hartley House's server farm room]  
  
Squeezed in between a phone switch box and an empty bookshelf, she finishes extracting data from the first group of offline servers. She taps the PDA/data-extractor screen with her stylus and runs an analysis to determine if the Master File is in the information collected so far. After 20 seconds the screen flashes "Data analysis of 5 servers complete…file not found in sample."  
  
With a small sigh and a few more taps with her stylus, an updated floor plan of the room appears, with the locations of the 5 servers blacked out. She burrows a little farther back in her hiding place and waits for the next set of servers to go offline. She closes her eyes for a brief moment and listens to the low hum of computers overlaid with the slightly louder roar of air-conditioning units.  
  
Rubbing a forearm with her free hand, she tells herself that if she's going to be in the room for much longer she'll probably end up using her earrings to keep herself warm. Shaking her head slightly, she thinks about Vaughn and Weiss sitting in the CIA van and wonders if the mood in the van is amicable, or still adversarial.  
  
She knew when she came to the CIA office for debriefing after Taipei that something had changed between the two of them. Weiss had started calling her Agent Bristow again. She had thought nothing of it until she started noticing the dismay and discomfort on Vaughn's face whenever he was around to see Weiss address her in such a way.  
  
It was like…Weiss was…what was the word Vaughn used before…Weiss was admonishing him for something he had done. And she had a very good hunch that it had something to do with her.  
  
He probably thinks she was responsible for luring Vaughn to Taipei against his better judgment, she muses. And for making him do things that no regular CIA handler would do for his agent.  
  
She concedes that perhaps, yes, they were skirting around the boundaries of protocol when she began disclosing her problems, her life with him. She had no one else to confide in and he had actually turned out to be a pretty good listener. But once they both learned what her mother did to his father, protocol became irrelevant. Under the circumstances, in her opinion, she and Vaughn were doing the best they could in order to do their jobs properly.  
  
She hopes that Weiss can see that for himself on this operation. And maybe when all of this was over, she'd get him to call her Sydney again.  
  
Her PDA/data-extractor screen flashes again, and she is brought back out of her thoughts. The next set of servers has gone offline. She listens for any sounds or voices—hearing none, she darts quickly out of her hiding place. Taking a hard left and she makes it for the door, the only way in and out of the room. Sidling up to the hinged side of the door (just in case someone came in), she points the device face side up at the first offline server and presses the up button. She repeats this another 6 times and then taps her stylus on the screen.   
  
"Come on, come on," she whispers softly, watching the gadget furiously process all the data collected so far.  
  
After 25 seconds, her prayers are answered. The screen flashes the results. "Data analysis of 7 servers complete…file found in sample. CRC file check good."   
  
Within seconds she has the device in the backpack and the backpack strapped on. Reflexively patting her pockets to make sure she has everything, she leaves the room.  
  
She walks as quickly and quietly down the corridor as she is capable--being extra attentive to make sure the security precautions she took to get in are still there. Once around a right corner, she pulls out a little small remote from her cargo pants pocket, and aims it at the video camera, mounted above the entrance to the server farm room. Pressing a button, she restores the live video feed of the camera without interruption (it had been looping a pre-recorded shot of the corridor, while she was inside the room).  
  
A loud siren wails. The entire corridor is suddenly bathed in red light. Heart beating thunderously at the rapid change, she looks wildly around for an exit. She runs to the end of the hall and skids to a stop—she has to take either a left or right turn.  
  
"Left, I have to go left to go out the way I came in," she whispers to herself. She turns to go left, but stops. She can hear faint voices coming from that way. She looks right, and closes her eyes, visualizing the map of Hartley House. She could go right and leave an alternate way, but it would take longer and put her at greater risk of being discovered.   
  
The voices echoing from her left begin to get louder. Opening her eyes, she takes a deep breath.  
  
And makes her decision… 


	7. The Escape Take 1

Chapter 7 – The Escape – Take 1  
  
Notes: See Chapter 1.  
  
[LONDON – in the sub-basement of Hartley House]  
  
She turns left, and sprints as fast as she can towards the door at the end of the hall. She can hear the voices on the other side of the door get louder and louder as they near it.  
  
Looking up and around and she sees pipes running this way and that along the ceiling. Taking a few steps back, she runs and leaps, grabbing hold of a slender pipe spanning the walls of the hall, and swings herself up and out of sight as the door slides open.  
  
2 guards enter the hall holding semi-automatic rifles and stop, standing directly below her. She catches some of what they are saying above the noise of the siren.  
  
"—damn drills. I don't know why we bother with 'em. This place isn't worth breaking into. Nobody in their right mind would wander in here thinkin' it's the local chippy shop or the library."  
  
"Quit your whining. Let's just check the hall and then report back so I don't have to listen to the siren…or you anymore."  
  
She bites the inside of her cheek to keep herself from laughing out of relief. What a weird coincidence--the security drill had started just as she had restored the video feed. As soon as the two guards walk down the hall and take a right turn, she swings herself down slowly. Dropping to the floor quietly, she stands up and makes it past the closing door with inches to spare.  
  
Running flat-out now, the only thought occupying her mind now is making it out of the building unscathed.  
  
[CIA van, blocks away]  
  
Vaughn absently fingers Aunt Trish's hanky in his pocket. "How long has she been in there?" Weiss asks him. Vaughn makes a movement to slide his shirt cuff away from his watch so he can tell the time, but stops, and watches Weiss laugh. "Mike, you've been staring at your watch every minute for the last 50—"  
  
"56," Vaughn corrects him.  
  
"Ah…*56* minutes. My mistake."  
  
Vaughn is exasperated. "Will you cut it out? Yes, I'm nervous that we haven't heard anything from her in that long. And yes, she could be in there for a while yet."   
  
"You really want this to be her last mission, don't you?" Weiss asks him.  
  
Vaughn shoots him a look. "Yeah, I do. For her sake. And for my sanity," he adds with a small smile. They both jump in their seats as they hear her voice burst into their headsets.  
  
"Guimauve…to base, do you…copy?"  
  
Vaughn can hear her panting--she must be running full tilt from Hartley House.  
  
"Base, we copy. What's your status?" he says, trying to keep his voice calm.  
  
"I have the take*. I'm a…block away, coming back…the way I came. Had no problems…getting out…"  
  
Vaughn watches Weiss shift around in the back of the van to ready the wireless data-storage device. After fiddling with it, Weiss gives Vaughn the thumbs up.  
  
"We copy. Guimauve, we are ready for transmission."  
  
"I copy."  
  
Vaughn finally sees her appear on the night vision monitor and feels the tension alleviate from his body. She slows her run down to a brisk walk. He watches her take her backpack off and open it to retrieve her PDA/data-extractor. She palms it to her right side, the gadget face side up towards the van.  
  
"Am I in range yet?" she asks.   
  
Vaughn watches Weiss mouth '3 car lengths'. "Nope, not yet," he relays to her. "Another 3 car lengths." Within 5 seconds, the green light on the wireless device begins to flash. "Okay, you're within range now. Transmit."  
  
"Transmitting…now."   
  
Silence fills the van for a good 20 seconds as they watch her near and then pass the van. Finally, the green light on the wireless device becomes red. Weiss nods to Vaughn. They are now in possession of a copy of the Master File.  
  
Vaughn tries to keep his voice neutral even though he is feeling something close to euphoria. "Base to Guimauve, we have the take. Repeat, we have the take."  
  
"I copy." He can only see the back of her as she walks down the block, but he can hear the smile in her words.  
  
"Well done." Weiss says.  
  
"Thanks. Guimauve out."  
  
[A rooftop of an abandoned, boarded-up building, across the street from the CIA van]  
  
He had considered leaving his perch 5 minutes earlier to get the Master File from her just as she left Hartley House. But that would have put the both of them at risk of being shot at by the Alliance's Security Section. And that was a complication he could ill afford.  
  
Under his watch, he had witnessed her take out a device and then put it back in her backpack some seconds later. The only possibility that had come to his mind was that she was transmitting a copy of the File from that device to something or someone that could receive it. Like the CIA.  
  
Standing up after a few hours of inactivity, Sark stretches his legs and takes his night vision goggles off. He watches Sydney walk down the block and turn the corner, out of his sight. He didn't want to confront her, especially since he knew her mother's---fondness for her, despite the fact she had sanctioned him to take whatever means necessary to get the file from her own daughter.  
  
Opening the door to the roof, he descends the stairs quickly and quietly. He muses about his boss, and her daughter. One could almost say that Irina's attempt at reconciliation with her daughter was going to be a foregone conclusion. Of course Sydney wouldn't come into the fold, he wouldn't have expected anything less from her, being her mother's daughter. Sentimentality and nostalgia were luxuries in the business they were in, and it often got one killed. Not that he was planning to eliminate Irina or Sydney anytime soon. But he knew that Sydney was Irina's only known weakness. And soon, perhaps when the opportunity presented itself, he would take advantage of Irina's Achilles' heel…  
  
Reaching ground level, he finds the boarded up window he had initially entered the building from, and pulls at the damp plywood. The plywood gives easily under his tugging, and he slips out the back of the building.  
  
He walks around to the front of the building, and stops. Hidden in shadows, he surveys the block Sydney had passed through. Where could she have transmitted the File? His eyes dart back and forth, and finally fixes on a nondescript van.  
  
Eureka.  
  
Taking his handgun out from his jacket, he flicks the safety off and walks towards the van.  
  
[CIA van]  
  
Weiss turns off the last of the night vision monitors. Vaughn shifts around the back of the van, clearing things up.  
  
"You done?" Weiss asks him. Vaughn nods, watching him slide past him in the cramped space to the back doors so he can get out to get to the driver's side door. As he opens the back doors, he starts to speak. "She did great out there tonight—"   
  
And then stops abruptly as Sark lowers his gun barrel at his forehead.  
  
"Good evening, gentlemen. Ah, Mr. Vaughn. Will wonders never cease, running into you again so soon."  
  
Heart pounding, Vaughn glances at Weiss, and then at Sark. "What do you want?"  
  
"You have a file that Miss Bristow has transmitted to this van. My employer would like to obtain the CIA's copy of that file."  
  
"You…this was all a set up. The information was leaked to SD-6 and the CIA, about the Master File," Vaughn gets out. "Getting us to do the dirty work for you."  
  
"Yes, and if you don't give it to me in the next 20 seconds, your partner here will die."  
  
"Mike, don't give the file to him," Weiss says calmly.  
  
Thinking quickly, Vaughn attempts an opening gambit. "What if I duplicate a copy? You get yours, the CIA gets theirs, and everyone wins."  
  
"Mike, don't, don't let them get a copy." Sark presses the gun barrel against Weiss's forehead to silence him.  
  
"My terms are non-negotiable. You now have 10 seconds to decide." Vaughn puts his hands out to where Sark can see them, and reaches for the wireless device.  
  
"Put the gun down Sark, and I'll give the File to you."  
  
"5 seconds."  
  
Vaughn throws the device at Sark, and launches himself out of the van at him. They wrestle on the street and struggle for Sark's gun, pinned between them. A gunshot erupts. Sark gets up.   
  
Vaughn does not.  
  
Incredible, burning pain lances through him and he finds himself unable to move. He looks down and realizes he's been shot in the chest. A dark crimson stain is blooming on his shirt front. Moments later two more gunshots erupt, and in the edges of his fading vision he sees Weiss go down as well.  
  
He looks down and sees a corner of Aunt Trish's hanky peeking out from his jacket pocket. He tries to touch it but the last thing he remembers as the blackness claims him is the fact that Sydney—oh God Sydney…had told him to bring it for good luck…  
  
Note: "the take" is information gathered by espionage, from the International Spy Museum website: http://64.226.112.91/insiders/loe.asp 


	8. Interlude Aunt Trish Take 1

Chapter 8 – Interlude – Aunt Trish, Take 1  
  
Notes: See Chapter 1.  
  
[An undisclosed location somewhere in the ether]  
  
It was the shriek of surprise and the flurry of curses in French that made him open his eyes.  
  
"Michael, what on earth are you doing here? You have no business being here."  
  
In the middle of an empty, non-descript room, Aunt Trish sits at a table, in her favorite purple caftan, aglitter with crystals around her neck and fingers.  
  
He looks around, and then remembers. He looks down and to his utter surprise he is wearing the same clothes just before he got shot… His pats his chest quickly and he pulls the opening of his shirt out to look at his chest. There is no gunshot wound, no sign of blood anywhere on him.  
  
"Where the hell am I?"  
  
"You were just like your father when he was young. Absolutely abominable manners. Never mind that he worked for the CIA, though your mother did her best to raise you right." She sighs. "You are in the middle of my séance, is where you are. Here I am, trying to help poor Heloise contact her late husband, and you show up."  
  
He can tell something has gone horribly, horribly wrong for him.  
  
"Why did you just refer to me in the past tense?"  
  
Trish gives him a long, hard look.  
  
"Michael, you're dead."  
  
"No, I can't be…I have to get back…to Eric…my—my partner, he's been shot."  
  
"Dude, I'm right behind you."  
  
He turns around to see Weiss. "I guess that must mean I'm dead too," Weiss says, deadpan.  
  
"We have to get back, we can't let Sark take the File," Vaughn begins, trying to look for an exit—and finding none---out of the room.  
  
"Chère*, dear, calm down. And before your manners deteriorate completely, introduce me to your friend there."  
  
Vaughn lets out a frustrated sigh. "Eric, this is my Aunt Tricia, or Trish, as I call her. Aunt Trish, this is my partner at work, Eric Weiss."  
  
"Hello," Eric begins hesitantly, stepping out from behind Vaughn.  
  
"Well, hello, Eric," she purrs, giving him a thorough once over. Weiss looks momentarily surprised, but then wiggles his eyebrows back at her. Trish giggles.  
  
Feeling his face heating up from embarrassment Vaughn scrubs his hands against his face. "Aunt Trish, can we get back to the dilemma at hand? I'm not going to stay here, wherever it is. I need to get back to where I was before, and I think you're the only one who can help us."  
  
Trish sighs. "I suppose I should. It's not your time yet to be here anyways. You have that red hanky I sent you?" Vaughn fishes it out from his jacket pocket and waves it at her. "Well, I am surprised. You actually took it with you on the job."  
  
"Well, someone told me to," he said, thinking of Sydney. All the more reason for him to go back. He had to make sure she was all right, of course.  
  
Trish looks at him consideringly. "Yes, you and Eric need to go back. Your work is not finished yet, and the red hanky will help you."  
  
"What is the red hanky for?" Vaughn asks her.  
  
"Think of it as a…ah…karmic 'Get out of Jail' card. I got it from a little wizened old man during my travels in the Far East many years ago. He says it allows the carrier of the hanky to go back in his life and relive it from the moment he last touched it in the hopes that he will be able to make the right choice and live out his life as it was meant to be."  
  
"Do you have any more of those? Because I could sure use one, working with Action Man here," Weiss interjects, but a glare from Vaughn silences him.  
  
Trish laughs. "No, chère. I only received one. But the old man told me that not all people who have carried his hankys have benefited from its effects. In fact, some people were doomed to make the same choices over and over again, learning nothing." She drills Vaughn with a piercing stare. "I hope in my giving the hanky to you as a gift--you don't end up with the same fate as those unfortunate few."  
  
"No, I hope not," he says, still skeptical of the hanky's powers, but willing to do anything to get back. Trish sighs, and then she tilts her head to look at him from a slightly different angle.  
  
"Michael, hold the hanky out. Close your eyes, both of you, and count to three and you will be back to where you were when Michael last touched it. You will not remember any of this…unless you come back after making another wrong choice. All right?"  
  
"All right," Weiss and Vaughn say in unison.  
  
"Merci, Tante* Trish," Vaughn adds at the last moment. She nods and smiles at him warmly.  
  
"D'accord*. Do it."  
  
With a look and a nod, Eric closes his eyes. Vaughn closes his and then they count to three.  
  
"1—2—3---"  
  
[CIA van, blocks away]  
  
Vaughn absently fingers Aunt Trish's hanky in his pocket. "How long has she been in there?" Weiss asks him.  
  
Note: Chère means 'dear', Tante means 'aunt' and D'accord means 'OK' in French. 


	9. The Escape – Take 2

Chapter 9 – The Escape – Take 2  
  
Notes: See Chapter 1.  
  
[CIA van, blocks away from Hartley House]  
  
Vaughn absently fingers Aunt Trish's hanky in his pocket. "How long has she been in there?" Weiss asks him. Vaughn makes a movement to slide his shirt cuff away from his watch so he can tell the time, but stops, and watches Weiss laugh. "Mike, you've been staring at your watch every minute for the last 50—"  
  
"56," Vaughn corrects him.  
  
"Ah…*56* minutes. My mistake."  
  
Vaughn is exasperated. "Will you cut it out? Yes, I'm nervous that we haven't heard anything from her in that long…and yes---" he pauses, "---she could be in there for a while yet," he finishes absently, feeling suddenly uneasy. He catches himself staring at one of the night vision monitors.  
  
"What's the matter?" Weiss prompts him.  
  
"I don't know. I thought I saw something move on that screen right there, aimed at the rooftop of the building across from here---" Vaughn begins, pointing. They both jump in their seats as they suddenly hear her voice burst into their headsets.  
  
"Guimauve…to base, do you…copy?" Vaughn can hear her panting--she must be running full tilt from Hartley House.  
  
"Base, we copy. Stand by," Weiss says, trying to figure out what it was that caught Vaughn's eye.  
  
"I think we may have company," Vaughn mutters darkly, as he spots another movement from the same screen as before. "Guimauve, what's your status?"  
  
"I have the take. I'm a…block away, coming back…the way I came. Had no problems…getting out…"  
  
Vaughn watches Weiss shift around in the back of the van to ready the wireless data-storage device. After fiddling with it, Weiss gives Vaughn the thumbs up.  
  
"We copy. Guimauve, there may be unfriendlies in the vicinity. The operation might have to abort."  
  
He hears her footsteps slow very slightly; she must be surveying her surroundings. He can almost feel the tension vibrating from her, through his headset.  
  
"No, we're not going to abort this operation," she begins slowly.  
  
"It's too dangerous—" he starts, but she cuts him off.  
  
"Base, I mean to complete this mission, unfriendlies or not," she says, with a ring of steel in her voice. "Am I within range yet?"  
  
Vaughn finally sees her appear on the night vision monitor, walking briskly. The momentary feeling of dread he had experienced when she said she'd finish the mission quickly dissipates as he views her now, unharmed. He watches her take her backpack off and open it to retrieve her PDA/data-extractor. She palms it to her right side, the gadget face side up towards the van.  
  
Vaughn watches Weiss mouth '3 car lengths'. "Negative," he relays to her. "Another 3 car lengths." Within 5 seconds, the green light on the wireless device begins to flash. "Okay, you're within range now. Transmit."  
  
"Transmitting…now."   
  
[A rooftop of an abandoned, boarded-up building, across the street from the CIA van]  
  
He had considered leaving his perch 5 minutes earlier to get the Master File from her just as she left Hartley House. But that would have put the both of them at risk of being shot at by the Alliance's Security Section. And that was a complication he could ill afford.  
  
So he had watched and waited to see if she would end up coming back the same way as she came, and as expected, she did. But what surprised him was when she slowed down part way down the block and tilted her head down as if she was listening to something. Or someone.  
  
She had to be receiving instructions from someone else. Like the CIA. He watches her take out a device from her backpack. She must be attempting to transmit the Master File. His eyes sweep up the length of the block, and then down again. The nondescript van.  
  
Standing up quickly, even after a few hours of inactivity, Sark takes his night vision goggles and makes for the door to the roof. Time was of the essence, no time for anything else but to get that File.  
  
[CIA van]  
  
Watching the green light on the wireless device turn red, Weiss nods to Vaughn. They are now in possession of a copy of the Master File.  
  
"Base to Guimauve, we have the take," Vaughn starts. "Repeat, we have the take." He knows he should be feeling elated right about now, but he is more worried about getting Sydney out of the area than anything else.  
  
"I copy." He can only see the back of her as she walks down the block, but he can hear the smile in her words.  
  
"Well done. Now get the hell out of there before Mike goes and calls for a not-so-subtle CIA escort for you."  
  
Vaughn glares at Weiss. They both hear her snort. "Thanks you guys. Guimauve---"  
  
Sark has suddenly appeared in front of her, holding a gun. Sydney is stopped in her tracks, holding her hands up.  
  
"Ah…Miss Bristow…a pleasure it is to meet you again, as I'm sure you'll agree."  
  
"Actually, no I don't agree, Sark," she replies sarcastically.  
  
Weiss and Vaughn witness the exchange with bated breath. Weiss shoots Vaughn a look and he can tell by the grim look on his face that Vaughn is plotting to get Sydney out of there by any means possible.  
  
"Mike…" Weiss whispers, (even though there is no need to) "…she can take care of herself. She knows we can't help her."  
  
"Unless she's in extreme danger, Eric. I'd say this situation qualifies for it---"  
  
"---Shhh, I can't hear what Sark's trying to say," Weiss interrupts. Vaughn ceases to speak and they both listen to Sark continue his talking.  
  
"---watching you. Your mother has sent me to retrieve the File. So let's just be adult about this and get it over with, shall we?"  
  
"What if I don't want to give you the File?" Vaughn can see her, standing firm, tilting her head up to face Sark's pale, ghostly image on the screens.  
  
"She authorized me to retrieve the File from you at *any* cost," Sark emphasizes, but Sydney shakes her head.  
  
"We both know how high the stakes are. You'll only get the file over my dead body," she says, with clenched teeth.  
  
The sound of the safety being flicked off the gun is deafening. Weiss tugs hard at Vaughn's arm to keep him from leaving the van.  
  
"That, my dear, can be arranged," Sark says, his lips curling slightly upward. He raises the gun so that it is pointing at her head. "You have 60 seconds to give me the File or you die."  
  
"You never call her anything but my mother…" she suddenly asks him, trying to stall him. "Why?"  
  
"Because I know that she is your weakness, as much as you are hers. However, she is willing to sacrifice you for this File. You would not if your positions were reversed. Though, if I were to terminate you, she will truly have no weaknesses left." He looks slightly discomforted at that thought. He raises his empty hand, palm up, outstretched towards her. "Give me the File."  
  
"No," she tells him. He sighs.  
  
"Perhaps I could persuade the gentlemen in the CIA van over there to give me their copy, then?"   
  
Weiss and Vaughn still, as they realize their cover has been blown.  
  
"You leave them out of this," she begins. "The deal is between you and me."  
  
"No no no….Sydney, don't do this---" Vaughn barks into his headset, ripping it off and managing to get by Weiss.  
  
"You're going to get yourself killed!" Weiss hisses, as he watches Vaughn load a clip into his gun, and then burst out the back doors of the van. With a resigned sigh, Weiss grabs his gun, and quickly follows Vaughn out.  
  
"My, this is becoming quite the party," Sark drawls, as Weiss and Vaughn approach with guns drawn.  
  
"Walk away from here, Sark," Vaughn growls.  
  
"I don't believe you are in any position to negotiate, Mr. Vaughn. I have a gun pointed at Miss Bristow here and she has something I have been ordered to retrieve. Unless you are willing to give me your copy of the File, I will take hers. Over her dead body if I must. You have 30 seconds."  
  
Suddenly they hear a car fast approaching from the opposite end of the block. Vaughn watches her look at the car, and sees her eyes widening with surprise.  
  
"That must be SD-6 Security Section," Sydney explains. "They must have been expecting me to show up at my checkpoint the past hour. They will kill us all if any of you are seen with me. Let's discuss terms after I pass the checkpoint." She makes a movement to sidestep Sark but is prevented by him.  
  
"All the more reason for you to give me the File now." He takes a step to get within arms length of her.  
  
"Do *not* take one more step towards her." Weiss calmly orders.  
  
Sark sighs. "So be it. I tried." He lowers his gun, looking resigned. But just as soon as Weiss and Vaughn momentarily lower theirs, Sark raises his and manages to squeeze off several shots in their direction before diving between 2 parked cars.   
  
Surprised he had the reflexes to hit the ground that fast, Weiss manages to crawl between some other cars just as he watches Vaughn quickly sprint past him on the sidewalk. "Sydney! Mike! Get down!" he yells. He slides across a station wagon bumper to get a good vantage point to see where Sark might be. He peeks his head out to look and jerks back just as the SD-6 car (coming up the block) opens fire—right where he last saw Sark.  
  
It must have been seconds instead of the eternity Weiss was feeling before he could muster the words to speak again. "Mike, you with me?" Silence. "Sydney?" More silence. Weiss's outstretched arms shake slightly as he rises with his gun. He knows he has to get up, and he dreads it because a thousand bad scenarios are already going through his mind.  
  
"Mike? Sydney?" He steps onto the sidewalk and looks towards where Sydney was last standing. Sark is lying on the sidewalk, face down, bleeding and sprawled unnaturally like a rag doll.  
  
Vaughn is sitting a few feet away, leaning against a lamp post, pale. Sydney is there, cradled in Vaughn's lap. Her eyes are closed, hand lax in his. Weiss's eyes fly to her face, then the rest of her. She had been shot once—a perfect shot to the heart.  
  
"Mike?" Weiss hoarsely whispers. "Mike?"  
  
30 seconds was all it took, Vaughn thought to himself. From when they were at standoff to now. Time gone in a blink of an eye. He can sort of see Weiss standing in front of him, then crouch down. He begins to speak.   
  
"Eric…I…pushed her down…and covered her…but Sark got to…her first. I tried to…save her—I wanted her to…finish this…for all--" he said, finding it harder and harder to sound coherent. The intense pain was beginning to throb, almost in time with every fading heartbeat left in him.  
  
"Mike, we gotta get you out of here," Weiss begins, seeing for the first time the massive wounds Vaughn took for her. He attempts to grab the red hanky peeking from Vaughn's jacket pocket to use it to staunch some of his wounds but Vaughn shakes his head and closes his eyes, his breath beginning to rattle. "No no, Mike, you hang on now."  
  
"This is…not the…time…or…place…to finish this."  
  
"You bet it isn't," Weiss says fervently, and as he looks down, he is surprised to feel tears roll down his own cheek.  
  
"I can't…believe…it…this…hurts more…" Vaughn whispers.  
  
"What hurts more?"  
  
"Knowing that—she's gone…rather…than…knowing that…I'm dying..." Suddenly feeling cold--almost to the bone, Vaughn closes his eyes and musters his remaining strength to speak. "This isn't…how it should…end." 


	10. Interlude – Aunt Trish, Take 2

Chapter 10 – Interlude – Aunt Trish, Take 2  
  
Notes: See Chapter 1.  
  
[The same undisclosed location somewhere in the ether]  
  
"You are definitely right about that, chère."  
  
Vaughn looks about him and sees Aunt Trish again.   
  
"Oh crap," he mutters, "not again."  
  
"And you have company once more," Trish adds, arching a curious eyebrow.  
  
Vaughn whips around to see a slightly disoriented Sydney.   
  
"Vaughn, where are we?"  
  
He sighs, runs his hands through his hair, and then places his hands out in a placating gesture. "Sydney, it's a little hard to explain, but you and I are dead."  
  
"Dead?" Sydney begins. "You have *got* to be kidding me." She looks at Aunt Trish. "Is she dead too?"  
  
"No…she's…my Aunt Trish," Vaughn explains lamely. "Aunt Trish, this is Sydney Bristow, my, ah—the CIA agent I am in charge of."  
  
"Was in charge of." Sydney corrects him, shooting him a slightly disgruntled look. "You're not going to be handling me in the afterlife--if this is really the afterlife--considering the crappy job you did in our previous lives."  
  
Despite herself, Aunt Trish laughs. "Michael, are you sure you're the one in charge?" she needles him, prompting his ears to go pink, and his mouth to open and close like a fish.  
  
He glares at Sydney only to see her smile a little sheepishly. "Sorry, Vaughn. I was feeling a little…punchy there. Being newly dead does that to you, I guess."  
  
"I suppose I was in line for a cheap shot," he mutters, sending her into giggles. "But I do have a way to get us out of here."  
  
"How's that possible?" she asks him.  
  
"Because of Aunt Trish here, I have a way to get us back to before you did the file transfer. The catch is that you won't remember any of this," he explains, waving his hand about the room.  
  
"What, you have a Marshall-like gadget for coming back from the dead?" Sydney asks, with an arched eyebrow.  
  
"You could say that," he says, looking at Aunt Trish, who is now giving him an enigmatic smile.   
  
Sydney looks at him, skeptically, and then at Aunt Trish. "Wait a minute, Vaughn said you weren't dead. How is it that you're here then?"  
  
"I'm sort of tripping the astral plane fantastic. I'm in the middle of a séance."  
  
"Really? That's fascinating. And here Vaughn was telling me you were the crazy, insane one in the family."  
  
"Just eccentric, Sydney, my dear. Insane is when you're nuts and it bothers you. Crazy is when you're just nuts and you like it.*"  
  
Vaughn groans in exasperation. He pulls out the red hanky and clears his throat. "I'd hate to cut things short, but it's time to go."  
  
"But we just got here," Sydney starts.  
  
Aunt Trish smiles warmly at her. "It's all right, chère. We'll meet in life soon enough. And I'm looking forward to that."  
  
"I'd like that," Sydney says, smiling.  
  
Vaughn takes his hand out, and Sydney puts her hand in his, causing that tingling sensation again. He shoots a sidelong glance at Aunt Trish, and now the only thing she is doing is grinning.  
  
"Close your eyes. And count to three on my mark," he orders, glaring at Aunt Trish with a 'please-don't-embarrass-me-anymore-in-front-of-the-girl' look.  
  
Closing her eyes and taking in a deep breath, Sydney nods. "Okay."  
  
"On my mark…" he begins, taking the red hanky out from his pocket…  
  
"1—2—3---" they count…  
  
[CIA van, blocks away]  
  
Vaughn absently fingers Aunt Trish's hanky in his pocket. "How long has she been in there?" Weiss asks him.  
  
* Note: Just a cheesy quote from a friend's email signature; wish I came up with that originally. :D 


	11. The Escape Take 3

Chapter 11 – The Escape – Take 3  
  
Notes: See Chapter 1.  
  
[CIA van, blocks away from Hartley House]  
  
Vaughn absently fingers Aunt Trish's hanky in his pocket. "How long has she been in there?" Weiss asks him. Vaughn makes a movement to slide his shirt cuff away from his watch so he can tell the time, but stops, and watches Weiss laugh. "Mike, you've been staring at your watch every minute for the last 50—"  
  
"56," Vaughn corrects him.  
  
"Ah…*56* minutes. My mistake."  
  
Vaughn is exasperated. "Will you cut it out? Yes, I'm nervous that we haven't heard anything from her in that long…and yes---" he pauses, "---she could be in there for a while yet," he finishes absently, feeling suddenly uneasy. He catches himself staring at one of the night vision monitors.  
  
"What's the matter?" Weiss prompts him.  
  
"I don't know. I thought I saw something move on that screen right there, aimed at the rooftop of the building across from here---" Vaughn begins, pointing. They both jump in their seats as they suddenly hear her voice burst into their headsets.  
  
"Guimauve…to base, do you…copy?" Vaughn can hear her panting--she must be running full tilt from Hartley House.   
  
"We copy," Vaughn cuts in before Weiss can speak. "What's your status? We may have some unusual activity going on in the vicinity…" he says, gesturing to Weiss and pointing to the monitor showing the rooftop again. This time it was unmistakable---someone or something was definitely moving around up there.  
  
"I have the take. I'm a…block away, coming back…the way I came. Had no problems…getting out…" She pauses before speaking again. "And what did you mean by unusual activity?"  
  
"He means unfriendlies," Weiss replies through his headset, shifting around in the back of the van to ready the wireless data-storage device.  
  
Vaughn hears her footsteps speed up very slightly---she must be trying to hurry to get within range of the CIA van to do the file transfer. Furiously thinking, Vaughn considers options. Option A, get her to do the file transfer and leave her on her own to get out. Option B, abort the file transfer, get her out of the area safely and figure out a way to do a transfer of some kind before she arrives back in LA.   
  
"I can hear you thinking. You want to abort this op, don't you?" she asks him, with a hint of mutiny in her voice.  
  
Vaughn hesitates before answering her. "It's a possible option at this point."  
  
"We're not going to abort this operation," she begins slowly.  
  
"It's too dangerous—" he starts, but she cuts him off.  
  
"Base, I mean to complete this mission, unfriendlies or not," she says, with a ring of steel in her voice. "Am I within range yet?"  
  
Vaughn finally sees her appear on the night vision monitor, walking briskly. The momentary feeling of dread he had experienced when she said she'd finish the mission quickly dissipates as he views her now, unharmed. He watches her take her backpack off and open it to retrieve her PDA/data-extractor. She palms it to her right side, the gadget face side up towards the van.  
  
Vaughn watches Weiss fiddle with the device and then mouth the phrase '3 car lengths'. "Negative," he relays to her. "Another 3 car lengths." Within 5 seconds, the green light on the wireless device begins to flash. "Okay, you're within range now. Transmit."  
  
"Transmitting…now."   
  
"At the rate you're moving," Weiss informs her, "we're not going to get all the data from you before you step out of range with your gadget. So if you can slow down just a couple seconds…"  
  
"I copy," she says, stopping instantly as if she had dropped something on the sidewalk. Keeping her gadget face side up and out of sight as much as she can, she squats down and peers at the ground. After a few seconds, she pretends to pick up what she dropped and starts walking again. "So where are these unfriendlies you speak of situated?"  
  
"On the rooftop of the building across from us," Vaughn replies.  
  
"You know it could just be pigeons," she offers as an explanation.  
  
"Nocturnal pigeons?"  
  
"Sure, there are some species that live in the city who've adjusted to the night by staying close to bright street lamp lights. Hey, did you know that some pigeons have the ability to see ultraviolet light*? Marshall told me that the other day."  
  
Vaughn watches Weiss roll his eyes.  
  
Sydney continues her train of thought. "Maybe someday SD-6 will create a squad of super-pigeons and get them to go on missions instead of sending out people. Though I don't know how the CIA handlers would be able to deal with pigeon double agents. Or stool pigeons would be the more appropriate term to call them I guess."   
  
Weiss is sitting in the van, shoulders shaking, trying not to laugh out loud.   
  
Vaughn shoots him an outraged look. "Always glad to be someone's punching bag," he finally replies in a sardonic tone.  
  
"You guys are a tough crowd. I was just trying to kill some time here. Lighten up will you?" They hear her laugh. "So how are we doing with the file transfer?"  
  
Sitting up in his seat, Weiss checks the device.  
  
[A rooftop of an abandoned, boarded-up building, across the street from the CIA van]  
  
He had considered leaving his perch 5 minutes earlier to get the Master File from her just as she left Hartley House. But that would have put the both of them at risk of being shot at by the Alliance's Security Section. And that was a complication he could ill afford.  
  
So he had watched and waited to see if she would end up coming back the same way as she came, and as expected, she did. But what surprised him was when she sped up partway down the block and then stopped moments later to look for something on the ground.  
  
She had to be doing something with the File. But what? A dead drop or file transfer? Possibly. But who was she in contact with? SD-6? No, they wouldn't chance a transfer, not this close to Hartley House.  
  
Standing up quickly even after a few hours of inactivity, Sark stretches his legs and takes his night vision goggles off. Opening the door to the roof, he descends the stairs quickly and quietly, hoping to catch up with her.  
  
Reaching ground level, he finds the boarded up window he had initially entered the building from, and pulls at the damp plywood. The plywood gives easily under his tugging, and he slips out the back of the building.  
  
He walks around to the front of the building, and stops. Hidden in shadows, he sees her tall, slender form pass by a station wagon. Where could she have transmitted the File? His eyes dart back and forth, and finally fixes his gaze back on a nondescript van she had passed seconds earlier.   
  
He smiles. Of course the CIA would be nearby in the hopes of obtaining a copy of the File from her. Mindful of his orders, he takes his handgun out from his jacket, flicks the safety off of it and begins to moves stealthily towards the van, shifting his focus away from Sydney.  
  
[CIA van]  
Vaughn tries to keep his voice neutral even though he is feeling something close to euphoria. "Base to Guimauve, we have the take. Repeat, we have the take."  
  
"I copy." He can only see the back of her now as she walks down the block, but he can hear the smile in her words.  
  
"Well done." Weiss says. "Now get the hell out of there before Mike goes and calls for a not-so-subtle CIA escort for you. We'll stick around for a little while yet and see if the unfriendlies show up."  
  
Vaughn glares at Weiss. They both hear her snort. "Thanks, you guys. Gotta go, I have to make my checkpoint in 2 minutes or SD-6 Security Section may come looking for me."  
  
"All right." Weiss says.  
  
"Thanks for putting up with me, guys. Guimauve out." They watch her make her way down the block and turn the corner.   
  
Satisfied that nobody is up on the rooftop after 10 minutes of watching the night vision monitors, they decide to pack up. Weiss turns off the last of the night vision monitors. Vaughn shifts around the back of the van, clearing things up.  
  
"You done?" Weiss asks him. Vaughn nods, watching him slide past him in the cramped space to the back doors so he can get out to get to the driver's side door. As he opens the back doors, he starts to speak. "She did great out there tonight—"   
  
And then stops abruptly as Sark lowers his gun barrel at his forehead.  
  
"Good evening, gentlemen. Ah, Mr. Vaughn. Will wonders never cease, running into you again so soon."  
  
Heart pounding, Vaughn glances at Weiss, and then at Sark. "What do you want?"  
  
"You have a file that Miss Bristow has transmitted to this van. My employer would like to obtain the CIA's copy of that file."  
  
"You…this was all a set up. The information was leaked to SD-6 and the CIA, about the Master File," Vaughn gets out. "Getting us to do the dirty work for you."  
  
"Yes, and if you don't give it to me in the next 20 seconds, your partner here will die."  
  
"Mike, don't give the file to him," Weiss says calmly.  
  
Thinking quickly, Vaughn attempts an opening gambit. "What if I duplicate a copy? You get yours, the CIA gets theirs, and everyone wins."  
  
"Mike, don't, don't let them get a copy." Sark presses the gun barrel against Weiss's forehead to silence him.  
  
"Tantalizing though the offer may be, it wouldn't serve any strategic advantage if the CIA, SD-6 and the organization I work for were all to have the same intel at the same time. My terms are non-negotiable. You now have 10 seconds to decide." Vaughn puts his hands out to where Sark can see them, and reaches for the wireless device.  
  
"Put the gun down Sark, and I'll give the File to you."  
  
"5 seconds—"  
  
But suddenly, to Vaughn's amazement, Sark is jerked violently back from Weiss by a pair of unseen hands. Weiss slides to the pavement, and scrabbles for a hold to hoist himself up.  
  
Vaughn watches in utter shock and amazement as he sees Sydney fly through the air and deliver a series of furiously quick punches finishing off with a roundhouse kick that dropped Sark to the ground like a sack of potatoes.  
  
Her voice floats in the night air and reaches him, faintly. "You guys okay?"  
  
"I just watched the Matrix, only it was live," Weiss says, dazed.  
  
"Why did you come back? You should be at your checkpoint by now," Vaughn starts, getting out of the van to see if she was hurt at all (she wasn't, of course).  
  
"I was," she grunts, trying to lift an unconscious Sark up by the armpits. Vaughn automatically bends down to grab Sark's feet. "I made contact with an SD-6 agent at my checkpoint and was asked to drop off the File. I was on my way back to my hotel when, I don't know, I had this, weird gut feeling that you guys might be sitting ducks with a copy of the File. So I doubled back here." Vaughn gives her a skeptical look and she arches an eyebrow at him. "Well, I was *right*, wasn't I?"   
  
They tie Sark up with a few plastic zap straps and then heave him into the van. As Weiss calls the London CIA office for a team to take Sark into custody, Vaughn motions her a little ways from the van. She follows him a few steps. He turns and puts his hand on her shoulder and moves in to talk to her in a low voice.  
  
"Sydney, you shouldn't have come back and risk your life for us."  
  
"I had to. I wanted to," she said, earnestly. "I had to because the CIA needs to get that File to shut down the Alliance. And I wanted to because you would have done the same for me, in my place. You put yourself out on the line every time when I do my countermissions, even though you're not in the field most of the time. Why can't I do the same for you…and Weiss?"   
  
"It's not supposed to be done that way."  
  
She laughs ironically. "You're one to talk. You know we've bent and broken the rules ever since we found out that my mo--Irina, your father--"   
  
He nods, understanding, and he begins to feel a vague sense of déjà vu from his talk with Weiss earlier in the evening. "Yeah, I do. We do okay most of the time, but sometimes—"  
  
She nods, understanding too. "Yeah. I know." She takes a deep breath and for a long moment they don't say anything else, choosing instead to stare at the inky black sky.   
  
But finally, she breaks the silence. "I gotta go. I got a flight to catch in a few hours and I want to get some sleep before I do. Who knows if I'm going to be getting any decent sleep in the next few weeks, right?"  
  
He nods. "Right."  
  
"Okay." She shoots him a small, tired smile. "Bye."  
  
He nods. "Bye."   
  
After watching her melt into the shadows, he jams his hands into his jacket pockets and walks back to the van. Touching the red hanky, he pulls it out and looks at it consideringly. Wouldn't Aunt Trish have a hoot if she knew the hanky just might possibly be a good luck charm after all?  
  
"Ready to bust out of here as soon as the cavalry arrives?" Weiss calls out to him.  
  
Vaughn turns and smiles at Weiss. "Can't wait."  
  
*Note on pigeons and UV light was found here: http://www.stanfordalumni.org/birdsite/text/essays/Hawk-Eyed.html 


	12. The Fall

Chapter 12 – The Fall  
  
Notes: See Chapter 1.  
  
[MOSCOW – early morning, 2 weeks later]  
  
Two people—a man and a woman--are sitting across from each other at a café, reading the local papers. The man puts down the cigar he has been smoking and speaks first, in Russian. "Have you seen this morning's reports?"  
  
The woman pauses for a second to sip her latte before replying. "Yes. I had not thought they would move so fast in shutting down the Alliance." She sighs. "This will change the field considerably now, with one less major player on the scene. But, it will also set us back for some time. The CIA now has all the Rambaldi technology we have been trying to acquire."   
  
A few more minutes pass by before she speaks again. "Any news on Sark?"  
  
"No. But I think it would be…prudent to consider him lost to the organization. If he had wanted to escape, he would have done so by now, by my estimation. I think he's cut a deal with the CIA to lead them to us, Irina." He stares fixedly at her. "You know it will only be a matter of time before Sydney, Jack Bristow and Michael Vaughn come for you."  
  
He isn't sure if it was the light in the café or a trick of the mind, but for a brief moment he had thought that he had seen a flicker of sadness register in her eyes.  
  
"Yes, I know. I know now that it was a mistake to send Sark and give him the choice of obtaining the File from either her or the CIA. Because he knows that Sydney is my only weakness. And by keeping her alive, she continues to make me…vulnerable." She fixes her brown eyed, steely gaze on Khasinau. "I should have had Sark terminate her. I didn't. And that's a lesson I don't intend to repeat a second time. If they come for me, I'll make sure it's the first and *last* time they try."  
  
With that final, chilling tone, she rises from her seat, and calmly walks out of the café. 


	13. The Epilogue

Chapter 13 – The Epilogue  
  
Notes: See Chapter 1. (And thanks for the continued feedback. :D)  
  
[LOS ANGELES – evening, 3 weeks later]  
  
"I could get used to this not working thing for a while," Sydney said, sitting in front of the TV, watching Run Lola Run. "Catch up on all the latest goings on in the soap opera world."  
  
Will, sitting on Sydney's right, rolls his eyes and laughs. "Yeah, and maybe then you can get the *names* of the soap operas right too, while you're at it…"  
  
Francie, sitting to the right of her, shakes her head. "What you need is some serious R & R. I mean, the government should totally be sending you on an all expenses trip to Hawaii for a couple weeks—no…months, after all the years of undercover work you did for them. Maybe you ought to consider a career in the CIA." Sydney laughs, but not for the reasons Francie is thinking.   
  
When the Credit Dauphine bank had been shut down 3 weeks earlier, it was done publicly as an IRS/FBI raid. Although the raid had been legitimate, since they had proof that Credit Dauphine had also been a front to launder money for several 'unidentified, illegal organizations', as they had put it---there had also been a second raid done at the same time by the CIA, focusing on the SD-6 offices in the sub-basement of the bank building.  
  
Sydney had told Francie the closest version of the truth that she was allowed to tell---she and Jack had been informants for the IRS and FBI for several years, helping them gather evidence to expose the wrongdoing being done behind the scenes at the bank. Francie had accepted her story without hesitation and was more than overjoyed to know that Sydney wouldn't have to spend another day at the bank anymore.  
  
Will was also happy to see Sydney no longer associated with her job, for other reasons. He could go back to work and not worry about his SD-6 story ever being published. A 10-minute visit from Jack last week to 'persuade' his editor June Litvak to bury the story seemed to have done the trick…as soon as Jack left the office, a pale-faced Litvak called Will in and asked him to destroy all copies of his investigation immediately.   
  
As well, the CIA security detail that had been keeping an eye on him since he returned from Taipei had also been pulled that same day, leaving him with the impression that things were back to normal, except for one thing.  
  
Sydney. After Taipei, he had wondered if there was ever going to be a place in her life for him to be more than just a friend. But he knew, realistically now, that it was probably never going to happen. He had seen firsthand what she had sacrificed for her job and knew it had taken a considerable toll on her. And when she had needed someone to talk to, she didn't confide in him, but in someone else, probably someone who knew what she really did---that was apparent.  
  
And strangely enough, he was okay with that. He knows now that his once idealized version of 'Will and Sydney' will never be realized. He has been irrevocably changed from his recent experiences and only now was he starting to understand the real Sydney Bristow for the first time. He knows she is happy and thankful that he still wants to be friends with her, and that, for now, is consolation enough for him.   
  
The doorbell rings. Sydney gets up before anyone else does. "I'll get it." She walks hesitatingly towards the door, (still unsure as to who would show up on how doorstep, even now), and opens it.  
  
Vaughn is standing on the doormat, with a colorfully garbed, older woman to his right.  
  
"Hi," Vaughn says, looking a little sheepish.  
  
"Hey," she replies, surprised, and delighted to see him here, of all places.  
  
"Sydney, this is my Aunt Trish, visiting from France." He gives her a 'you-know-THAT-Aunt-Trish' look. Sydney nods at him slightly and gives them both a smile. "Aunt Trish, this is Sydney Bristow, a…colleague of mine."  
  
Trish extends her hand. "Delighted to finally meet you in person." Sydney shakes her hand and gives Vaughn a quizzical look, but remembers the various eccentricities Vaughn had mentioned in times past about her, and plays along.  
  
Sydney steps back into the house. "Yes, likewise. Please, won't you two come in?"  
  
"We just dropped by briefly because Aunt Trish said she knew a friend close by—" Vaughn begins but Aunt Trish cuts him off.  
  
"We're here, chère, and yes, we would be more than happy to come in," Trish beams, stepping inside. Following the two into the living room, Sydney sees Will and Francie get up off the couch to see who has dropped by.  
  
"Guys, this is my…supervisor, Michael Vaughn, and this is his Aunt Trish, visiting from France. They were just in the neighborhood and they stopped by to say hello." She gestures at Francie and Will. "This is my roommate, Francie and this is our friend, Will."  
  
Bobbing her head and saying hello to Aunt Trish, Francie repeats the same to Vaughn.  
  
Will raises his hand briefly at Vaughn. "Hey." (They had first met on the flight back from Taipei). He looks at Aunt Trish. "And hello," he says politely to her. She tilts her head slightly, looks at him for a moment, and then smiles back at him.  
  
"A pleasure to meet you all," she pronounces.  
  
Mindful that they have guests, Francie pipes up. "Would you two like something to drink? I just made some lemonade in the kitchen."  
  
"Yes, that would be wonderful, thank you," Aunt Trish replies. Watching Francie and Will go into the kitchen, she turns to Sydney and Vaughn with an expectant look on her face.  
  
Trying to think up a topic of conversation, Sydney glances at Vaughn, and sees his red hanky peeking out from the upper left pocket of his jacket. "I see you're still wearing the red hanky that she's given you," she begins.  
  
"Ah, yes. And as much as I hate to say it, Aunt Trish, I think the hanky has been a good luck charm for me. I'm glad you sent it and that Sydney talked me into carrying it with me on the job."  
  
Trish winks at Sydney, and without hesitation Sydney grins back at her.  
  
"Speaking of on the job," Vaughn hastens to add, "There have been some developments this evening. I was going to call you tomorrow and set up a meeting, but since I'm here…" She nods, instantly getting what he means.   
  
Looking at the two of them, Trish speaks. "Why don't you two go for a walk then? I can stay here and chat with Francie and Will. Maybe pull out my deck of Tarot cards and do a few readings to kill some time."  
  
Torn between wanting to hear Vaughn's news, and being polite, she hesitates. "I don't want to intrude on your time here---with Vaughn…"  
  
Aunt Trish waves her hand dismissively. "It is no problem whatsoever, chère. Please, go ahead."  
  
"All right. Thank you."  
  
"You're very much welcome."   
  
[A block away, 5 minutes later]  
  
They had elected not to say anything to each other until they were well away from her house. Vaughn clears his throat. "Sloane died about an hour ago of complications from the gunshot wounds suffered during the CIA raid. I called your father as soon as I found out and he gave me the okay to break the news to you." Jack was currently in Paris, trying to ascertain Irina's whereabouts.  
  
She stops walking. "He's finally gone." She says this more as a statement than question.  
  
He walks past her, and then turns around to face her. "Yes."  
  
"Danny's murder's been avenged, the Alliance is gone and Sloane died knowing that I gave the Master File to the CIA." She turns to face him. "This all happened because I made a choice to tell Danny about SD-6. How different would our lives have been if I never told Danny about SD-6, or if Sloane never had him killed. It's amazing sometimes how one decision made by one person can set off a chain of events that affects not only that person, but everyone around him in ways we can't even begin to anticipate or understand. Like that movie we were just watching when you and your aunt came by."  
  
"Yes." He thinks briefly what his life would have been like if he had never met Sydney Bristow and all he can draw is a blank.  
  
"I've accomplished what I set out to do when I became a double agent for the CIA. And yet, I feel as if my work is still not done." He knows what she is trying to say.  
  
"Sydney, your work is done. You can do anything you want now. You could take that senior officer position that Devlin offered, which would technically make you my boss—" she smiles at that--- "or go back to finish school and teach, or travel or help Francie open her restaurant. The point is, you don't have to be a spy anymore."  
  
"She's still out there."  
  
"Yes, but your father and I are doing what we can to find her. You helped us get to this point. We can take it from here."  
  
She shakes her head stubbornly. "She will come after me if you get too close to her." She takes a half step closer to him, and reaches out to trace the edge of the red hanky with her fingers, trailing across the brightly colored silk. "And despite all the good luck charms you may have, it's not going to be enough to keep you and Dad safe from her."  
  
He is at a loss for words…he knows she is right and he can't think up of anything to say otherwise.  
  
"I can't leave the business yet. I thought I could, these past few weeks---."  
  
"You still can," he argues, slightly distracted from the gentle heat her fingers have left in their wake, across his jacket and the red hanky. "Your father and I are going to make sure you---"  
  
Her fingers reach up and brush his lips, silencing him. She glides her fingers across his cheek, and turns it so that her palm is touching the side of his face.   
  
"Just because SD-6 and the Alliance are gone doesn't mean I don't have any more things worth fighting for. Worth protecting from harm."  
  
He blinks, taking in what she has just said. Was she hinting that they might have a future ahead of them, when all of this was over? A peculiar warmth spreads through him at that thought. He reaches up and covers her hand with his, wanting to be extra sure about what she just said. "You don't have to do this."  
  
"Vaughn, I'm doing this not because I have to, but because I *want* to. The choice is mine to make now, and I'm making it freely." She takes a step back, grabs his hand, and tugs a little. "Let's go."   
  
He follows her lead, but he quickly realizes they aren't going back to her house.  
  
"Sydney, where are we going? This isn't the way back."  
  
"No, but I have a hankering for a Slush-O. Come on, let's go before the convenience store closes. My treat."   
  
She flashes him a smile, and suddenly all he can think of is the here and now, with her. And with a small laugh, he follows her, down the block.  
  
(the end) 


End file.
